EA and Maxis' claim that it would take "significant engineering work" to make a workable offline version of SimCity took another hit today. Hackers have released modding tools that disable the game's periodic server checks without breaking the simulation. The tools also unlock other features not in the final game.

reddit is abuzz with news and guides for installing the SimCityPak, a downloadable package of files that lets players edit many elements of the UI and underlying game logic. The tools aren't incredibly user-friendly for the time being, but those with some Javascript experience and patience to learn can do things like disable the online connectivity requirement, fix the "fudged" population display, and even affect how the basic simulation works in some ways.

Hackers are still poring through the code to see what kinds of new features and gameplay can be unlocked (including, potentially, the holy grail of increased city size limits), but one of the most exciting discoveries so far has been a way to easily uncover the developers' debug mode. This mode allows for many features that players have been asking for in the consumer version of the game, including the ability to build highways through city limits and in the regional "dead space" between cities. These changes will apparently stay valid in the wider region after the city is synced to EA's central servers, though other users' cities will not see edits made to the regional landscape.

The debug menus also include references to terraforming tools, such as coastline and waterway building, which are currently disabled even in a hacked commercial copy of the game. Options for editing airplane flight paths, creating new docking points for ships, and creating new city and "great works" sites are also alluded to.

Ars was able to download and install a package file enabling this mode in less than a minute. For those who don't want to go through the hacking hassle, this YouTube video quickly shows how the debug mode works in practice. Another video shows a player using edited package files to bulldoze and cause disasters in other players' cities in the region (though the poster claims this was done without server syncing, to prevent any permanent harm from being done).

Last year, SimCity Creative and Art Director Ocean Quigley said the game was being "built to be moddable" at a GDC panel. He reaffirmed that stance in a tweet just last month, indicating modded package files would be allowed (but maybe not directly supported) once the game was released. Given the potential for menace on public servers being quickly unlocked by players, however, this stance may not last.

It's been rather incredible watching the gaming community's reaction to SimCity's launch over the last week and a half, and it's impressive to see that community taking action to try to fix the myriad disappointments in the game as it was released. We can't wait to see what other interesting modifications to the game the community will be able to uncover in the coming weeks and months.

Too funny, it took them less than a week even with all the engineers EA has and couldn't (wouldn't)...

I agree with the sentiment, but don't bash the Engineers... they don't make the decisions.

It's probably some finance guy/gal with a fancy smancy MBA that looked at his/her spreadsheets and decided that EA would capture ALL the pirated copy sales if they put ALWAYS online DRM onto the product, ignoring all the issues that Ubisoft and Activision had with their attempts.

I bet ALL the technical staff that worked on SimCity are quietly proud that the two-faced marketing/finance people have egg on their face for being proven to be lying to their customers. Some may have even secretly contributed some technical assistance to the modders.

Believe, me, I know, Engineers HATE it when their work is crippled solely because of self-serving marketing/financial decisions that hurt customer satisfaction.

Edit: Replaced THQ with Ubisoft... my bad... Ubisoft was the one with the always online requirement for playing single player games, not THQ.

matt_w_1 wrote:I suspect most of the broken and missing features are because of the time restrictions EA put on the product. I bet they needed a big release this quarter to make the investors happy.

I see people mitigating away EA's lies with claims of the product being rushed, rather than the game working as intended (outside of the server disconnections). So, not only did you miss prior mitigation, but you're doing it yourself. Why would EA change when they have gamers like you, ignoring the obvious and even trying to explain issues away?

I saw that post before I replied. That is not a defense of EA. That poster blames EA, implicitly their management, for the issues with the game.

But here is the thing. The game WAS rushed. The game is also intended to sell microtransactions, dlc, and expansion packs. These two things are not mutually exclusive.

That's mitigation. You're saying the issues with the game are unintentional - I'm saying the issues are a result of deliberate planning. The difference is intent (like the legal difference in first degree murder and second degree murder - intent). Don't give EA or Maxis any kind of pass. Refuse to accept their official line about the game requiring a persistent connection, or reasons why mod tools couldn't be included, or any other of the obvious BS (far more obvious given this hack).

You're doing the gaming equivalent blaming the rape victim for being raped (hey, she was asking for it with that outfit, type nonsense). A move that, intended or not, mitigates the volatility of the heinous act of rape.

OK, so now there's a way to do things within the game that you couldn't before. But still no one's answered the question as to whether you can now save your saved games locally.

Because if you *have* to save up on the cloud - couldn't EA simply run a save game integrity checker of some kind, and delete the save games of people who build stuff which was disallowed in the first place?

That's the problem. Coupled together with the fact that supposed, you can sabotage someone else's city with this hack? That's not a good thing. It's going to cause additional problems while solving others.

The true answer is the ability to save locally. Did the hack enable that?

That's mitigation. You're saying the issues with the game are unintentional - I'm saying the issues are a result of deliberate planning. The difference is intent (like the legal difference in first degree murder and second degree murder - intent). Don't give EA or Maxis any kind of pass. Refuse to accept their official line about the game requiring a persistent connection, or reasons why mod tools couldn't be included, or any other of the obvious BS (far more obvious given this hack).

You're doing the gaming equivalent blaming the rape victim for being raped (hey, she was asking for it with that outfit, type nonsense). A move that, intended or not, mitigates the volatility of the heinous act of rape.

Take a deep breath. Stop attacking people who say that EA is merely incompetent, shortsighted, and uninterested in product quality. Stop saying that moderate position is appeasement or blaming the victim (which doesn't even make sense in this context). And stop putting words in peoples mouths if they are insufficiently ideologically pure for your taste.

And, for the love of all that's holy, lay off the rape analogies. As awful as EA is and has been, you are making all of the legitimately angry people look like lunatics just by standing near them.

Too funny, it took them less than a week even with all the engineers EA has and couldn't (wouldn't)...

I agree with the sentiment, but don't bash the Engineers... they don't make the decisions.

It's probably some finance guy/gal with a fancy smancy MBA that looked at his/her spreadsheets and decided that EA would capture ALL the pirated copy sales if they put ALWAYS online DRM onto the product, ignoring all the issues that THQ and Activision had with their attempts.

I bet ALL the technical staff that worked on SimCity are quietly proud that the two-faced marketing/finance people have egg on their face for being proven to be lying to their customers. Some may have even secretly contributed some technical assistance to the modders.

Believe, me, I know, Engineers HATE it when their work is crippled solely because of self-serving marketing/financial decisions that hurt customer satisfaction.

As someone who works on 'the business' side of a large company, we're not all like that. Heck not even most.

But somehow we manage to funnel the really dumb ones to the software industry. We are sorry for this. So very very sorry.

matt_w_1 wrote:I suspect most of the broken and missing features are because of the time restrictions EA put on the product. I bet they needed a big release this quarter to make the investors happy.

I see people mitigating away EA's lies with claims of the product being rushed, rather than the game working as intended (outside of the server disconnections). So, not only did you miss prior mitigation, but you're doing it yourself. Why would EA change when they have gamers like you, ignoring the obvious and even trying to explain issues away?

I saw that post before I replied. That is not a defense of EA. That poster blames EA, implicitly their management, for the issues with the game.

But here is the thing. The game WAS rushed. The game is also intended to sell microtransactions, dlc, and expansion packs. These two things are not mutually exclusive.

That's mitigation. You're saying the issues with the game are unintentional - I'm saying the issues are a result of deliberate planning. The difference is intent (like the legal difference in first degree murder and second degree murder - intent). Don't give EA or Maxis any kind of pass. Refuse to accept their official line about the game requiring a persistent connection, or reasons why mod tools couldn't be included, or any other of the obvious BS (far more obvious given this hack).

I don't think he was saying that. Rushing the game to boost profits this quarter WAS intentional, and the stuff they cut out will (would have?) boost their profits next quarter as DLC. They go hand in hand. Seems kind of cut and dry to me.

Besides, how do you "accidentally" rush a game? "Oops! Larry just accidentally dropped the gold master into the duplicator! I guess we have no choice but to ship now! That Larry! He's wacky!"

Personally, I'm not sure why they didn't release two parallel games. There are obvious, eager customers for a proper entry in the classic tradition. Then toss out a Sim Town version (roughly the existing version) for online play and to rope in the Sims addicts. EA has done that sort of thing before.

I would have loved a full-fledged Sim City successor with novel (and opt-in) online elements, especially for what PvP I might squeeze out of it. But I'd have been perfectly happy with an evolutionary improvement over SC4 (specifically one with full 3D, irregular lots, and non-linear roads).

Can we now get all the dimwits that kept telling us SimCity was just a different game from every other SimCity game of the past, such that "offline single player" wasn't possible, nor was it a form of DRM, to shut the hell up?

Seriously. Someone was trying to tell me in the last thread that because the devs said that it was a gameplay thing, not a DRM thing, it was obviously a gameplay thing, and not a DRM thing. I called bullshit. Where is said person now, and can I get a response on this startling new development? Am I allowed to say "I told you so"?

That's mitigation. You're saying the issues with the game are unintentional - I'm saying the issues are a result of deliberate planning. The difference is intent (like the legal difference in first degree murder and second degree murder - intent). Don't give EA or Maxis any kind of pass. Refuse to accept their official line about the game requiring a persistent connection, or reasons why mod tools couldn't be included, or any other of the obvious BS (far more obvious given this hack).

You're doing the gaming equivalent blaming the rape victim for being raped (hey, she was asking for it with that outfit, type nonsense). A move that, intended or not, mitigates the volatility of the heinous act of rape.

Take a deep breath. Stop attacking people who say that EA is merely incompetent, shortsighted, and uninterested in product quality. Stop saying that moderate position is appeasement or blaming the victim (which doesn't even make sense in this context). And stop putting words in peoples mouths if they are insufficiently ideologically pure for your taste.

And, for the love of all that's holy, lay off the rape analogies. As awful as EA is and has been, you are making all of the legitimately angry people look like lunatics just by standing near them.

So we should all just take a moderate stance with regard to being blatantly lied to? Seems like all that approach will do is encourage the very behavior you don't want. And that bothers me as in the US we have no protection for consumers of software. Once you've bought it, you're stuck with it, even if the developer/publisher was blatantly deceptive in marketing the product. Hell, even if the product plainly don't work, you're still stuck with it.

So, no. I won't take a moderate stance with regard to this game, given that every reason we've been given for why something was or wasn't done, can or can't be done, is disproved by the modding community just hours later. But, maybe I'm just one of those nuts that for some odd reason doesn't like being lied to.

Everything about the game screams 'too good to be true' without enough evidence to backup anything they are proclaiming.

I would advise strong caution before committing funds here.

For now I'm inclined to think Civitas isn't a scam - it's just a project being attempted by programmers who don't know much about the business/PR side of running a project and underestimated the task they set for themselves. That may not make a lot of people feel better - projects run by good-intentioned people can still fall apart - but I'd say it's worth keeping an open mind and watching the project page come together.

This whole story just gets more and more sad. As if they couldn't have hired people to create a robust version of SimCity with the features everyone expected. I can't figure out why they'd make choices like they did.

I find it blatantly obvious. EA wants to turn SimCity into The Sims. Have you ever priced The Sims when all DLC is added to the equation?

"Well that's fantastic, a really smart decision. We can buy a traditionally single-player game made Farvmille-social, then we'll require a permanent internet connection to thwart piracy aaaaaand it's gone.""Uh, what?""It's gone. It's all gone.""What's all gone?""The DRM on your game - it was circumvented, it's gone.""What do you mean? The game is social and computational. It requires servers to make all of those calculations and connections!""Not anymore it doesn't. POOF.""Well, well what can I do to get back my customers?""I'm sorry sir, but this release is for DRM-employing, user-abusing companies only.""But we're EA!""Do you have any DRM on your game?""No, you just hacked it!""Then please stand aside for companies who actually have a poorly-implemented DRM scheme on their game. Next please."

As this article recounts, gamers no longer tolerate the enforced limitations imposed by game developers. This has long been the case to a degree as evidenced by the very existence of game modding, but now the intolerance is growing. Gamers are now consciously aware that game developers make many design decisions that are deliberately contrary to the needs and wishes of their eventual customers... and they're angry as hell and aren't gonna take it any more.

"Developments" like this demonstrate how open source values can be imposed even on unwilling manufacturers. An open source world is coming, whether they like it or not. They'd better get used to reduced profits and control, because their customers are tired of being enslaved by DRM and copyright and other monopolistic trickery.

Well, they're nearly half way to the $250K goal. So, we're likely to find out if the folks behind this Kickstarter project are on the up and up or not. Things would be a little more comforting if there were actual evidence that development was taking place. A few tiny screenshots isn't much, and could easily be faked.

Everything about the game screams 'too good to be true' without enough evidence to backup anything they are proclaiming.

I would advise strong caution before committing funds here.

For now I'm inclined to think Civitas isn't a scam - it's just a project being attempted by programmers who don't know much about the business/PR side of running a project and underestimated the task they set for themselves. That may not make a lot of people feel better - projects run by good-intentioned people can still fall apart - but I'd say it's worth keeping an open mind and watching the project page come together.

It entirely could be. For now they don't give me enough meat on the bone to see if its a legit entry. The backers sound like complete unknowns outside of making vague references to working on games I have heard of. At the very least, if they really don't want to publicize names, I would want to know what they did on those games.

Or show me a 30-90 second video on gameplay. Something that makes it look more real.

I hope it is real, and if it is, I hope they are massively succesful. I will pay the launch price. But if they want interest they need to show they aren't a group looking to take advantage of EA's missed opportunity. Otherwise you're just trusting a name on the internet...

Everything about the game screams 'too good to be true' without enough evidence to backup anything they are proclaiming.

I would advise strong caution before committing funds here.

For now I'm inclined to think Civitas isn't a scam - it's just a project being attempted by programmers who don't know much about the business/PR side of running a project and underestimated the task they set for themselves. That may not make a lot of people feel better - projects run by good-intentioned people can still fall apart - but I'd say it's worth keeping an open mind and watching the project page come together.

It entirely could be. For now they don't give me enough meat on the bone to see if its a legit entry. The backers sound like complete unknowns outside of making vague references to working on games I have heard of. At the very least, if they really don't want to publicize names, I would want to know what they did on those games.

Or show me a 30-90 second video on gameplay. Something that makes it look more real.

I hope it is real, and if it is, I hope they are massively succesful. I will pay the launch price. But if they want interest they need to show they aren't a group looking to take advantage of EA's missed opportunity. Otherwise you're just trusting a name on the internet...

FWIW, If you dig through the comments on their Kick Starter they make some vague references to being afraid of losing their day jobs if they are outed as working on Civitas as an excuse not to name names (they have since mentioned a few team members). And they have some video of the "real-time" terraforming.

But yeah, it smells a little fishy. I really hope they are on the up-and-up, raise the money they need and produce a really awesome game. But they can do it with other people's money for now. I'll reserve judgement until they finish the project and release something.

Out of curiosity, have hackers managed to create an offline mode for Diablo III yet?

Interestingly enough, I've seen no cracks for DIII (doesn't mean one will never happen - it took quite some time for the scene release of Assassin's Creed 2). I mean, there are even pirated copies of World of Warcraft out there alongside pirate servers to play upon.

DIII is actually the game that made me say, "never again," with regard to needless always on DRM. I made the mistake of buying based on my love of Diablo 1 and 2, along with Blizzard's reputation in the gaming community. Well, that experience certainly learned me to never pore-order based on past performance and expectation, at least in the gaming world. Now PC gamers are getting slapped in the face again with the upcoming console release of DIII sans the persistent on-line requirement.

So this article and the others like it today put me in a bit of a mental pickle. On the one hand, the amazing things modders have done with this game (and other more modder-friendly games in the past) seems to be a great commercial for open source. You made a game (Sim City) that was OK. These hackers took your game and made it better! For FREE!

The mental pickle comes from the fact that, to date, very few companies have figured out how to make money off of open source. How many people would buy Sim City if they could just get the source and compile it? Red Hat makes money by selling support contracts. I guess EA could make money running the servers? I'm not sure.

But so far no open source (or libre) game has matched AAA games in terms of gameplay, graphics, etc. Oh, open source games could strongly compete with a lot of the indie fare that's been coming out lately. But what about these AAA games?

Perhaps there's a market there (now that we depend less on retail than we used to) for the smart guy who came make the business case of the game that the users build for free (as in Linux), but the company makes the money to sustain the artists and other people needed to make the high level game.

Well now, to be fair, UBI did come out and state they were doing away with the always online and draconian DRM they have come to be known for. But then again, seeing is believing .

How fast people forget. This is not the first time Ubisoft decided it would do away with onerous DRM. They released The Two Thrones with the goddamn Starforce, which just barely avoided setting people's computers on fire. They claimed they learned their lesson. Prince of Persia (2008) had no DRM whatsoever. They made a big deal out of it. The game did not sell well, they decided it was because of pirates. Then they went overboard with DRM. Now they are trying to back-peddle. They are like a fucking yo-yo. I bet in a few years they'll try to sell us their games with a fucking hardware dongle.

Too funny, it took them less than a week even with all the engineers EA has and couldn't (wouldn't)...

I agree with the sentiment, but don't bash the Engineers... they don't make the decisions.

It's probably some finance guy/gal with a fancy smancy MBA that looked at his/her spreadsheets and decided that EA would capture ALL the pirated copy sales if they put ALWAYS online DRM onto the product, ignoring all the issues that THQ and Activision had with their attempts.

I bet ALL the technical staff that worked on SimCity are quietly proud that the two-faced marketing/finance people have egg on their face for being proven to be lying to their customers. Some may have even secretly contributed some technical assistance to the modders.

Believe, me, I know, Engineers HATE it when their work is crippled solely because of self-serving marketing/financial decisions that hurt customer satisfaction.

Don't blame the finance people either. They usually aren't the ones making the decisions, either. No, bad decision-making usually comes down to arrogant execs who assume they know better than the people actually doing the work. As a former finance guy, if I had a dollar for every time I told an exec the numbers don't support their decisions and they went ahead anyway, I'd be retired by now.

This whole story just gets more and more sad. As if they couldn't have hired people to create a robust version of SimCity with the features everyone expected. I can't figure out why they'd make choices like they did.

I find it blatantly obvious. EA wants to turn SimCity into The Sims. Have you ever priced The Sims when all DLC is added to the equation?

Now, change The Sims 3 to SimCity, and you'll know exactly where EA is taking this thing.

For those that can't be bothered adding up, The Sims 3 Complete (up to now) would cost you $459.85

I actually think the Sims series is woefully under-referenced in these kinds of discussions. EA has been pulling shit like this since the Sims 1 (that's what, 2001?). They're the industry leaders in DLC. If I remember correctly, the original sims base game had the same thing as in a free-to-play game, where they gave you like 2-3 pieces of furniture per category, before adding in obviously missing features later. (although to be fair, this was back in the days of proper expansion packs).

Personally, I'm not sure why they didn't release two parallel games. There are obvious, eager customers for a proper entry in the classic tradition. Then toss out a Sim Town version (roughly the existing version) for online play and to rope in the Sims addicts. EA has done that sort of thing before.

Funny, does anyone else remember the aborted SimsVille project? It was planned to come out a year or two after the Sims, but was abandoned. Maybe it wasn't abandoned after all.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.